New Study Reveals Weekend Sleep-Ins Can Lower High Blood Pressure Risk

Sleeping an extra hour or two on the weekends can reduce the risk of high blood pressure, a study shows. Scientists have largely asserted that people should keep regular bedtimes and wake-up times, maintaining a consistent sleep schedule across the week, including weekends. But the new study questions that view, building on other recent research that suggests weekend lie-ins and extra sleep more broadly are good for the heart and overall health.

The findings, presented on Sunday at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual congress in Munich, Germany, were based on a seven-year study of 40,727 adults in South Korea. These were adults from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, studied from 2016 to 2023. The researchers examined how many extra hours participants slept at weekends compared with weekdays.

The latest study found that catching up on sleep at the weekend after a long workweek lowers the prevalence of high blood pressure. However, this was only the case when lie-ins were kept at a moderate length—about one to two hours of extra sleep with an optimal increase of about one hour and 37 minutes. In all, weekend catch-up sleep was associated with a 6 percent decrease in the chances of high blood pressure. This decrease was larger for physically inactive people, who saw a 6.9 percent decrease in chances of hypertension.

As of 2024, 1.4 billion adults aged 30–79 worldwide have hypertension, accounting for 33 percent of the world population in this range, according to the World Health Organization. High blood pressure is a major cause of premature death worldwide, the United Nations agency added. The findings of this study have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Nawon Lee from Korea University in Seoul said in remarks reported by several news outlets on Monday that not sleeping enough places extra stress on the body, forcing the heart and blood vessels to work harder, which can increase blood pressure. She added that people should not feel lazy or guilty for sleeping a little longer at the weekend if they have not been able to get enough sleep during the week. However, she warned that when weekend catch-up sleep becomes excessive, the degree of sleep irregularity and circadian disruption may increase, which could offset that benefit.

In the 2024 European Society of Cardiology’s annual congress in London, researchers presented a study of more than 90,000 individuals. The study found that people with the most weekend catch-up sleep had about a 20 percent lower risk of developing heart disease than those with the least.

For decades, the medical consensus has been that too little sleep can harm cardiovascular health. However, scientists have previously suggested that weekend lie-ins could be harmful by disrupting the body's natural circadian rhythm. In 2019, researchers studied 36 adults, dividing them into three groups to examine the effects of sleep restriction and recovery.